By Phillip Hogan
December 30th, 2009
Posted in Intl Tea Trade, Tea in the News
Sri Lanka looks set to secure a claim, under the current World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), for Geographical Indicators (GI) to protect the prestigious wording: ‘Ceylon Tea’.
The country already has existing rights, under intellectual property rights laws, that protects the phrase ‘Pure Ceylon Tea’ and the iconic lion logo from unauthorised use. The existing law currently covers 60 countries but has to be registered in each country before copyright is assured.
The appeal of the GI system, if Sri Lanka’s bid is successful, is that any product registered under GI status immediately benefits from copyright protection in all of the WTO’S 150 member...